Diversity. What is the meaning of diversity, and why is it so important? It means being diverse, in other words a range of different things. Schools should do something similar to this because it gets kids to understand more about different people and their cultures or backgrounds. Here at the Monmouth Middle School we schedule a diversity day for our students to learn and enjoy new things about other people’s backgrounds and cultures. Each student from 4-8 had different schedules planned for them. The CRT (civil rights team) did hard work on trying to figure out who should go where and what time each session schould be. With the help of their advisers Mr. Kirby Reardon, Mrs. Florel Steuerwalt, Mrs. Carol Libby and Mrs. Mary-Beth Paquette, they helped tremendously in arranging each student’s schedule and assigning each guest speaker to a room and planning out their sessions.

There were three sessions. Session one was 8:30-9:20, session two from 9:30-10:20, and the third session was from 10:30-11:20. Each student would go to the first session, and then the next, and the next. After the third session, students had a break in their homerooms and had lunch. Then one of our guest speakers, Shamou, is a musician from the Middle East. He performed for the whole student body in our school cafeteria. Some students participated in the presentation with Shamou.

We had 15 guest speakers from everywhere possible. Thom Harnett is a Maine Assistant Attorney General who discussed the Civil Rights Law and its impact on Maine students. Our MMS CRT Improv. Group presented skits and performances on harassment, bullying and civil rights violations. A representative from the Maine Special Olympics Panel, who has coached students with disabilities so they could participate in various sporting activities. In turn it would make them feel like they could do things that they thought they couldn’t do. Jacqueline Littlefield who is a professional at the Holocaust Center of Maine discussed impacts of the Holocaust and what they had to deal with. Chris Wright is a Regional Coordinator for the Civil Rights Team project. He led a discussion about “What about the boys?” and made boys talk about some situations they had to deal with.

Brigitte Nyada is a woman from Cameroon, Africa, who talked about her culture. Jennifer Hill is a representative from the United Cerebral Palsy Center of Maine. She discussed things about people who had cerebral palsy, andhow to work with them. Shamou, who we already know is a musician from the Middle east, and talked about his backgrounds.

Rita Dube who is a representative from the Franco-American Heritage center in Lewiston, talked about the French influence in our state.

Steve Philbrick who is our school principal showed a video that was created by a middle school in Tennessee that focuses on how societal events and tragedies affect children.

Sheri Mitchell talked about our Native American people in the state of Maine. She involved many of their customs, traditions and heritage.

Marty Soule is a representative of the American Field Service, and talked about how our students could get involved with the traveling programs.

Leona McKenna is an employee for the Division of the Blind. She talked about how she has to live with being blind, and how she does things around this world.

Westside Neurorehabilitation Panel is a group of people who have sustained a traumatic brain injury, and who talked about how life is for them, and how to be safe and prevent non biological injuries to the brain.

Last but not leaset, Adrian Ortiz who was born and raised in Mexico, and currently resides in Monmouth. He taught students how to dance in the Mexican heritage, and talked about his heritage down in Mexico.

Learning all this information from these people makes me think, wow these people are really cool, and that these people should be more noticed by the world, and not just noticed in schools and where they work.

To all these guest speakers, we want to thank all of them for being here, and for coming. Without them coming to our Diversity day we would not know the information that they taught us, and not know about their different kinds of background and cultures.

“We wonder why we can’t be different, but the truth is that we shouldn’t be afraid to be ourselves.”